- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
A study released Tuesday shows that the most-trafficked Websites for digital piracy aren't harboring BitTorrent trackers, but direct downloads and video files.
MarkMonitor, a Web site that specializes in "enterprise brand protection," said a study of the most-trafficked domains engaged in digital piracy revealed three sites - rapidshare.com, megavideo.com, and megaupload.com - that combined yielded 21 billion pageviews per year.
As a whole, the collection of sites which MarkMonitor classified as "digital piracy" represented 146 million page views per day, or 53 billion page views per year. Even the least-visited sites in the category drove 781 million hits per year, the firm's study found.
The report classified sites in one of two categories - counterfeit phyical goods, such as "generic" pharmaceutical drugs; and digital piracy, or illegally copied digital music and movies. The study didn't track how many movies, for example, were actually downloaded; in that case, however, movies uploaded to some sites actually display via Flash and do not "download" a copy to the user's machine.
Rapidshare's terms of service specifically prohibits "works the download of which violates third-party copyrights". But the site also says that it does not open and view the files of its users, and contains no search function so that other users may look for content. Instead, each file is linked to directly by the uploader.
The terms of service at Megavideo.com and Megaupload.com also contain similar language.
"The study used only 22 brands, so we can assume that many other brands and content-creators are suffering similar damage," the study found.
In total, the ten brands that MarkMonitor used produced 43 sites which the study labeled as "digital piracy", and generated 146 million visits per day, or 21 billion per year.
The MPAA condemned the study's findings.
"The findings in the MarkMonitor report on online piracy and counterfeiting are a call to arms for both government and the private sector," Bob Pisano, the organization's president and interim chief executive, in a statement. "As the report demonstrates, a small number of rogue websites are generating mind-boggling traffic in pirated content. Billions of visits to these easily searchable websites â the vast majority of which are hosted in North America or Western Europe âtranslate into billions in lost revenue and lost American jobs. At a time of economic hardship, government and industry simply cannot stand by and allow businesses built on theft to flourish unimpeded and thereby handicap legitimate innovation and job creation.
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MarkMonitor, a Web site that specializes in "enterprise brand protection," said a study of the most-trafficked domains engaged in digital piracy revealed three sites - rapidshare.com, megavideo.com, and megaupload.com - that combined yielded 21 billion pageviews per year.
As a whole, the collection of sites which MarkMonitor classified as "digital piracy" represented 146 million page views per day, or 53 billion page views per year. Even the least-visited sites in the category drove 781 million hits per year, the firm's study found.
The report classified sites in one of two categories - counterfeit phyical goods, such as "generic" pharmaceutical drugs; and digital piracy, or illegally copied digital music and movies. The study didn't track how many movies, for example, were actually downloaded; in that case, however, movies uploaded to some sites actually display via Flash and do not "download" a copy to the user's machine.
Rapidshare's terms of service specifically prohibits "works the download of which violates third-party copyrights". But the site also says that it does not open and view the files of its users, and contains no search function so that other users may look for content. Instead, each file is linked to directly by the uploader.
The terms of service at Megavideo.com and Megaupload.com also contain similar language.
"The study used only 22 brands, so we can assume that many other brands and content-creators are suffering similar damage," the study found.
In total, the ten brands that MarkMonitor used produced 43 sites which the study labeled as "digital piracy", and generated 146 million visits per day, or 21 billion per year.
The MPAA condemned the study's findings.
"The findings in the MarkMonitor report on online piracy and counterfeiting are a call to arms for both government and the private sector," Bob Pisano, the organization's president and interim chief executive, in a statement. "As the report demonstrates, a small number of rogue websites are generating mind-boggling traffic in pirated content. Billions of visits to these easily searchable websites â the vast majority of which are hosted in North America or Western Europe âtranslate into billions in lost revenue and lost American jobs. At a time of economic hardship, government and industry simply cannot stand by and allow businesses built on theft to flourish unimpeded and thereby handicap legitimate innovation and job creation.
Read more
